Since its establishment, Tama Art University has turned out a number of leading designers in the field of Japanese visual communication design. In this age of increasingly complex information, the area of visual communication is expanding as well, and designers with both visual expression abilities and problem-solving skills required by society are presently needed in various fields. With its systematic curriculum, the Department of Graphic Design fosters practically skilled designers versed in "communication" fueled by abundant creativity, and "communicability" supported by clear planning skills and imaginativeness.

The curriculum is divided into introductory courses in the first and second year, and specialized courses in the third and fourth year. The introductory courses focus on the development of creativity as a foundation of visual communication design. While cultivating "communication" based on description skills, and "communicability" as a product of creativity in terms of color, shape, material and composition, by "manual" techniques, students learn "mechanical" modeling techniques based on photography and computer technology. Centering around a systematically built course system, the curriculum for the specialized third and fourth year courses was designed to develop high degree of professionalism. Students choose one from among the three specialized courses "Advertising", "Communication" and "Expression". In anticipation of their future careers, students may also take a combination of specialized courses other than the one selected.

Graduates are active in various branches of society as highly regarded creators combining expressive and planning abilities. Working as directors, designers, planners or illustrators for advertising firms, manufacturers, printers, newspapers, publisher, broadcasters and other companies, they are involved in graphic design, video, web, animation, character, game software or computer graphics production. Others choose to continue studies at a graduate institution, or study abroad.